What do the Protestant Ethic and the Ethic of Authenticity have in common? Both are disciplining, internally and externally. open.substack.com/pub/thesilve...

Soc Theory Nerds should check out @dsilver432.bsky.social's always illuminating Substack. The most recent missive, on "The Iron Cage of Authenticity" is fun into Tay Tay's philosophy (Charles Taylor, of course. Did you think Taylor Swift?). thesilverlining3.substack.com/p/the-iron-c...

A Sandbox for Artificial Social Intelligence open.substack.com/pub/thesilve...

In this post, I articulate two invitations to sociology. One is predominant, represented by Pierre Bourdieu. The other is a persistent undercurrent and can be usefully formulated via a look at Harold Garfinkel’s ethnomethodology. open.substack.com/pub/thesilve...

Another excellent piece from a sociologist I truly admire. As one of "those" in the Parsons camp, this essay spoke volumes to me. But, its value is in its attempt at transcending the (very) small contemporary pro-Parsons faction in the field. Erudite and insightful...check it out.

This essay responds to Joseph Heath’s recent post on social construction and the “sick role.” It offers three comments on Talcott Parsons. open.substack.com/pub/thesilve...

What would happen if John Rawls ran into Nietzsche’s demon while shopping at a grocery store for breakfast cereal? I try to answer that question with a little parable that tells us something about the problem of existential meaning and aesthetics for liberalism. open.substack.com/pub/thesilve...

So ends an era of ASA’s public facing journal as @contexts.org officially leaves print behind and moves completely online. I've somehow spent 1/3 of my life w/ @contexts.org starting on the grad board under the leadership of @chrisuggen.bsky.social, Douglas Hartmann, and @lettapage.bsky.social

In this post I discuss the logic of functionalist explanation and argue we should not be afraid to use it, when appropriate. Bonus points if you can recognize the image and see the connection! open.substack.com/pub/thesilve...

A Market-Failure Approach to Platform Ethics. The first in a series of posts on why social media is a staged competition for influence, and how to decide what counts as fair play. #sociology #platforms open.substack.com/pub/thesilve...

Here is a draft of my syllabus for a seminar on Artificial Social Intelligence. The goal is to return to and build upon some ideas from classical sociology in which mind, intelligence, and knowledge have a constitutively social dimension. thesilverlining3.substack.com/p/my-syllabu...

Why has so much contemporary social theory come to feel so empty? This essay argues that part of the answer lies in sociology’s implicit embrace of aspects of Kantian formalism. thesilverlining3.substack.com/p/tarrying-w...

@sethabrutyn.bsky.social wrote this thread about 6 months ago, about a post contrasting classics vs model based fields. Down-thread, Seth notes that he doesn't care about Hegel or Kant. I promised a post articulating why I think he should. Here it is! thesilverlining3.substack.com/p/tarrying-w...

Designing experiments in classical social theory III. Welcome to the hidden abode of production. open.substack.com/pub/thesilve...

An essay on the creativity of social conflict, from 1950s PTA meetings to 21st century social media flame wars. open.substack.com/pub/thesilve...

Populism: a sociological perspective open.substack.com/pub/thesilve... This piece tries to bring a sociological perspective to the discussion of populism, building on Heath’s provocative essay and Dan Williams’ critical notes on grounding a theory of populism in dual process psychology.

True science is distinctively the study of useless things. For the useful things will get studied without the aid of scientific men.

What would Plato Do? On LLMs, writing, and thinking. #Sociology #AI open.substack.com/pub/thesilve...

Towards a sociological theory of the LLM open.substack.com/pub/thesilve...

What does it mean to kick away the ladder of reference? On cultural vs social theories of LLMs. Saussure vs Peirce and Wittgenstein. Social Theory ftw! A critical response to Weatherby’s Language Machines. open.substack.com/pub/thesilve... #Sociology #AI #LLM

Teaching classical sociological theory at the twilight of the Age of the Essay and the dawn of the Age of AI open.substack.com/pub/thesilve...

Update on a continuing series about using a multi agent LLM platform to teach classical sociological theory in a new way. #sociology #AI #LLMs In this episode, we introduce class into a market order and observe the results. open.substack.com/pub/thesilve...

Cultural cartography in sociology, literary studies, and LLMs. Plus a bit of sociology of the sociology of culture. On coding , counting, and reading, and the possibility of something else. open.substack.com/pub/thesilve...

One fun thing about spending a little time on Substack is that you glimpse how other disciplines wrestle with foundational issues. thesilverlining3.substack.com/p/between-in...

In sociology, we don’t get monumental works of social theory by leading social theorists very often these days. So when we do, it is worth paying attention. In this post, I offer a critical analysis of John Levi Martin’s The True, the Good, and the Beautiful. open.substack.com/pub/thesilve...

www.aldaily.com Check out the first entry

Psyched and grateful that @thepointmag.bsky.social published my essay on reading Houellebecq through the lens of theatricality and absorption from Michael Fried. Check it out there thepointmag.com/criticism/a-...

Check out a summary and backstory to a new special issue on Theory Visualization in Social Sciences. #sociology thesilverlining3.substack.com/p/theory-vis...

Introducing a special issue I recently co-edited on Theory Visualization in #Sociology substack.com/home/post/p-... www.researchgate.net/publication/...

Urban scenes meets computer science . #sociology #computerscience open.substack.com/pub/thesilve...

The “attention economy” is the equivalent of reducing modern capitalism to what Weber called “adventure capitalism.” open.substack.com/pub/thesilve...

Notes on the ethic and spirit of social capitalism, from Benjamin Franklin to Influencer Ben . Stay grounded , King. #sociology open.substack.com/pub/thesilve...

How to use LLMs as a device for teaching social theorizing as a living practice? Here’s an experiment in that direction. If the Age of the Essay is over, we need to a lot of experimentation with novel alternatives. open.substack.com/pub/thesilve...

Sociologists often debate how to teach classical theory. This year I’m trying something new: we are using a multi agent AI platform to represent classical theories, experiment with their assumptions, and observe the results. #sociology #AI open.substack.com/pub/thesilve...

Theatricality is a classic concept in sociological theory, in which actors modify their self-presentation in response to the views of others. It is also a driver of artistic creativity, operating in a dialectical relationship with absorption.

On theoretical synthesis, diagrammatic hallucination, and modernization theory. With Bellah and Parsons, Weber, AI, and more! open.substack.com/pub/thesilve...

A little short story about what the post post industrial tourism industry might be like. open.substack.com/pub/thesilve...

The idea that "thinking is writing and writing is thinking" would have probably appalled Socrates. I suppose he might have thought that "thinking is talking and talking is thinking." But probably better is: thinking is thinking and thinking is thinking. open.substack.com/pub/thesilve...

If you are living in a community of inquiry dedicated to open-ended testing of an idea from all sides, you can speak this way naturally. open.substack.com/pub/thesilve...

@dsilver432.bsky.social provides an incredibly precise, fun, and surprising overview my sociological research and fiction writing. "Wynn, like any good confidence artist..."

The new issue of @contexts.org is a good one! And be sure to check out @dsilver432.bsky.social's examination of the @jonwynn.bsky.social ouvré (including The Setup, Jon's debut work of fiction) - journals.sagepub.com/doi/epdf/10....

Plurality vs Singularity,Individuality vs Sociality, Difference vs Sameness: founding ideas of social thought have a lot to teach us here, but we need an animating Idea to hold it together. Plurality and Artificial Social Intelligence is the way! open.substack.com/pub/techforl...

A lot of how we think about AI comes from disciplines that study the individual mind. AIs are already social and plural, however, and only becoming increasingly so. Can sociology provide models for Artificial Social Intelligence ? #sociology #ASI open.substack.com/pub/thesilve...

🌐 How do cities talk about each other? Drs. Noga Keidar & @dsilver432.bsky.social’s #Socius study shows #ArtPolicy ideas move not just from global hubs, but as peer cities cite, adapt, and remix each other. A fresh lens on #SociologyOfCulture & #PolicyMobility. Read: doi.org/10.1177/2378...